Pauline C Fryer - San Francisco, CA
Posted by: saopaulo1
N 37° 47.981 W 122° 27.802
10S E 547243 N 4183725
Grave of spy Pauline C Fryer.
Waymark Code: WMVBZ8
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 03/29/2017
Views: 5
"Pauline Cushman (Born Harriet Wood) (June 10, 1833 – December 2, 1893), was an American actress and a spy for the Union Army during the American Civil War.
After a Northern performance, Cushman was paid by two local pro-Confederate men to toast Confederate President Jefferson Davis after a performance. The theatre forced her to quit, but she had other ideas. She had decided to ingratiate herself with the rebels by making the toast, while offering her services to the Union as a spy. By fraternizing with rebel military commanders, she managed to conceal battle plans and drawings in her shoes, but was caught and brought before Confederate General Braxton Bragg, tried by a military court, and sentenced to death by hanging. Though she was already ill, she acted worse than she already was. The Confederates had to postpone her execution. Cushman was spared before her hanging by the invasion of the area by Union troops. Some reports state that she returned to the South in her role as a spy dressed in male uniform for references. She was awarded the rank of Brevet Major by General James A. Garfield and made an honorary major by President Abraham Lincoln for her service to the Federal cause, and became known as "Miss Major Pauline Cushman."[6] By the end of the war in 1865 she was touring the country giving lectures on her exploits as a spy." (
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